Wounded Heart, Wounded Head
by calicoskies4ever
Summary: For everyone who thought Wilson was acting like a total dick head in Wilson’s Heart. Spoilers season 4 AU slash story in which Wilson leaves the hospital, goes home, and then figures out what a big mistake he made, and comes back. please review no flames
1. Get Off The Bus

For everyone who thought Wilson was acting like a total dickhead in season four finale Wilson's Heart

For everyone who thought Wilson was acting like a total dickhead in season four finale _Wilson's Heart_. Alternate universe and alternate ending where Wilson leaves the hospital, goes home, and then figures out what a big mistake he made, and comes back. Warnings for slash, swearing, death of a character, and references to pretty severe child abuse. Any OOC behavior on House's part can be explained by the concussion.

"You can't always get what you want  
but if you try sometimes well you just might find,  
you get what you need.  
Oh baby, yeah, yeah!  
I went down to the Chelsea drugstore  
To get your prescription filled  
I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy  
And man, did he look pretty ill  
We decided that we would have a soda  
My favorite flavor, cherry red  
I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy  
Yeah, and he said one word to me, and that was "dead,"" Mick Jagger.

"You're back," House whispered, looking up at me, slightly confused as he woke up from a nap. "Why are you here? Should be mad. I'd be pissed. I'd probably kill me." Something in his voice, the tone—which was completely lacking in sarcasm—told me that he actually wanted me to do it. "If you are, do it fast, my head is gonna explode!"

"Here," I said, handing him the morphine pump. "She left a little note, under the pillow—and I just…Amber's gone. It doesn't make sense to be alone. Greg raised his eyebrow questioningly. "Don't get me wrong, I am mad, but I know how you get at night, especially when you're alone." House reached up, rubbing his temples. "You had a seizure and your…"

"I know," he cut me off. "And I'm sorry, not for. I screwed up; it's all my fault. Please go away. Don't wanna get yelled at right now." I sat down on the tiny bed, next to him, and stroked his hair, gently. "Ow. Ow! Stop, that hurts."

"You'll be okay, but not if you keep blaming yourself for this. Yeah, you could have gone home and gotten drunk in a safe place, you didn't have to plan on driving drunk, Amber could have called me just as easily as going to get you herself. It would have been a lot easier to call me. She didn't have to get on the bus with you. The truck driver didn't have to try and beat the red light. You get the point. I'm gonna stay." As I la down next to him, I felt myself starting to cry, and his chest was moving up and down slowly like he was holding back tears too. "Maybe we should…you're n pain, I'm in pain. It's not right for us to both keep it in like this." I was weeping already, tears falling down my face, almost soundlessly, and he sobbed a couple of times, but the task of actually crying proved to be too much.

"I can't do it, and you know why."

"What about—you mean because of me? I betrayed you," I said, my voice cracking more times in that sentence than it had in all of junior high. "What I did earlier, making you hurt yourself that way, and when I walked out like that, what I've done twice today it was inexcusable." House sighed, pressing his face into my shoulder. "If you're in that much pain, I can up your morphine a little."

"Didn't take it. Wanna—gotta be strong for you, while we o this. _I'm_ not mad at you, Jimmy. You were scared, and I was, and she kept, and—maybe. No, it's stupid, Nevermind." I watched as he depressed the pain killer button twice, and didn't complain when I kissed the top of his head. I did blame him for what happened to Amber, a little bit. I mean, how could I not? But at the same time, I loved him, and I could lose both of them. _No,_ told myself. _I'm not going to blame him. I will not put House through that. House needs me_. "How long is it gonna be before you stop hating me?" he asked, some time later, lifting up his head, making eye contact again. His face was desperate, pained, and I could see how much worse I was making everything by not telling him the truth.

"I'm pissed off, and I don't know if I'll ever completely forgive you—which is stupid and irrational, but…I don't hate you. I could never hate you, okay? Don't shrug, this is important. Look at me. You know when I'm lying right? You always know, don't you? I do _not_ hate you, and I will never leave again. I love you. Believe me?" I wrapped my arms around his chest, hugged and kissed him, and House gave himself a little more pain medication.

"I'm exhausted, Jimmy. Can I go to sleep now?" he asked, laying down slowly, rubbing his head. "Okay, yeah, I believe you. Let me sleep, please?" This time his voice seemed less desperate, more like normal.

"I need you to talk to me for just a little bit longer then we both. We'll both—go to bed, okay? I need a few more—just answer a couple of questions and—in a day or two, when your head is better, we'll go back to your apartment. You can recover there; just lay off the booze for a week or two."

"Shut up. I'll be okay in—my head hurts, don't wanna keep doing this if you're gonna be obnoxious and tell me everything is gonna be okay a million times over and over. Ask your stupid questions already; I'm about to pass out."

"What were you doing at that bar?" I didn't expect a response to this question, especially since I had been asking him the same thing ever since he came into the ER and he had been evading all along.

"I was drinking. You're kidding me, right?"

"You can drink at home, and you know that's not what I meant. Why are you—why do you need to go out every night and drink seven scotches? If I didn't know you better I'd think you were going for suicide, but that's not really your style is it?" House shook his head, then bent his thumbs and forefinger into a gun, and pretended to shoot himself in the head. "That's not funny. I'm serious. What are you doing to yourself?"

"Nothing," he whispered, closing his eyes. "I don't wanna do this anymore." Greg was asleep before I could pressure him into talking about it more. I wanted to be pissed off, but I knew too much about his history to blame the poor guy for not wanting to tell me what was bothering him. Up until this point I had thought that I knew everything bad that had happened to him, sleeping in the yard, ice baths, the physical abuse, the psychological stuff, he even told me about his dad—molesting him.

_Not that all of this stuff wasn't enough to make a guy want to drink himself into a stupor every night, but he was talking to me. We were working on it. He always called me when he got scared. I'd come over and hold him and make it all okay. But he hasn't called me since—oh crap._ And just like that, I realized why my best friend had gone from bad to worse without my noticing it. I was too preoccupied to see how much he needed me. I let him get like this, and then got mad at him for acting the way he did. I wanted to wake him up wand ell him what I knew, apologize for what I'd done, but he hadn't slept in three days and I wasn't going to make him even more sick, by depriving him of what he needed. I fell asleep about two hours after him, but didn't stay that way for very long.

XX

In the middle of the night I was having this dream about Amber. She was trapped under water in this pond, but it was frozen over. The whole thing was covered with ice and no mater how hard I pounded, it wouldn't break. It didn't seem like she was scared or drowning or anything though. That was the weird part. She just smiled, waved at me, and disappeared into the water.

"Wilson. Wilson, Wilson!" House's scream woke me. "Bad dream?" he asked, reaching out to brush a bit of hair out of my eyes. "It's okay, I mean, uh—it's gonna. I—everything is gonna be…" Then he said something that I couldn't really hear, but it sounded like 'I'm sorry.' "You looked really bad. Are you?"

"Yeah. No. I don't—it was just a dream. I think they're probably gonna last for a while, but I'm. Did you just—did you just apologize to me?" He nodded, but didn't speak. "Well—thanks, thank you, but you—this isn't your fault. You having the same problem?"

"No, it's just hard to sleep with you tossing and turning and moaning in your sleep," he told me, but I'd never caught him in an amore obvious lie. "I'm not a little kid; I'm not scared or anything. I just—my head hurts, that's it."

"I was having a pretty serious nightmare, and _I'm_ scared. If you want me to sleep in the chair, I can, but I really think you want me to stay here with you." I was hoping that he would feel better having heard me admit to being scared, and then do the same. Then, at least, I could make him feel better.

"Well maybe I'm a little bit—feeling less than great and not just 'cuz of my head. When I was little, and I used to have to…I think it was worse than anything else, sleeping in the yard. Probably because I—anyway, when there was a full moon or the sun was coming up, I could see where everything was. I knew there weren't anything or anybody there."

"Would it help if I turned on some of the lights in here?" I asked, and then realized that he would probably see some sort of an accusation in my comment. "I think it would help me too, having the light on. I know it will help me sleep, which would be good, because you would be able to relax some."

"Why are you being so nice to me? If you were—and I was—I'd be pissed off at the jerk who did this to my, and I wouldn't ever talk to me again."

"I think a little part of you wants me to hate you. If I stay here and I'm nice and I still care about my friend, then you don't know as much about people as you think. If I disappear, then it's gonna hurt a lot, but you'll also know that you were right. All people suck and they don't really care about each other, and it's gonna make you think that you don't need anybody/ well I'm—you would probably do something bad."

"I don't like being alone. You're nice to me, and I don't get that very often. If you go away, I might—I'd get over it with enough time, but you. It doesn't make sense for you to stay with me. I did something stupid because I'm weak and pathetic, and you ended up losing your girlfriend because of _me_. How can you not hate me?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I know my not being able to explain this has got to be scary for you. I just don't, and the only thing that makes sense for me right now is us. We shouldn't be alone right now. I'm scared, and depressed and lost, and you're gonna—I can't keep you from blaming yourself but in time, with love, and support, I might be able to make you understand that feeling that way won't help anyone."

"And you wanna help me?" he asked in a very soft voice, watching me as though he thought (or expected) that I might lie to him, or scream, or get up and walk away. "I had a bad dream too, probably why I woke you up, but you had that look on your face too, and I figured you probably needed me more than I need you."

"I'm not so sure about that one."

"Really?"

"I was okay, before all of this. My heart is strong. It can handle taking care of you, and dealing with—I'm gonna be fine, but you—I don't think you'll make it alone, and blaming yourself."

"I shouldn't blame myself, but _you_ blame me—and don't bother denying it, I can see it all over your face. You're pissed at me. What is the point of me not feeling the same way? It'll keep me from doing something this stupid ever again."

"Or it could kill you. Psychological pain can manifest itself as physical symptoms. One body can only handle so much pressure, depression, trauma, anger, and—toxins before it just stops working." He chuckled at me, but it was defiantly not a happy laugh.

"Okay, so maybe that's not completely stupid," Greg admitted, squeezing his eyes shut, tight.

"We should both try and get some sleep. If you need more meds," I started to say, but he completed the sentence without me. "If it helps knowing, I'm gonna stay here all night and morning, and for however long you need me."

"Don't you have stuff that you should be doing?"

"Her parents are taking care of the—of everything actually, and I think it's probably better that way. I'd have no idea how to do this right anyhow. I didn't even know her that long. I just…"

"I don't think the amount of time you spend with someone really matters. I mean, you love her, right? Loved. Sorry. It's not really my business," he said, touching the side of my face. "You sure that's the way you want things done?"

"You're actually worried about me, aren't you?" I asked, but as usual he followed up a kind act by behaving like an ass. House shrugged, upping his meds again, and sticking his tongue out at me. "Yeah, I know. You're a robot. You feel nothing, but look at me for a minute. Thanks, it means a lot for you to—I know that's not easy. You're doing a really good thing here."

"Well, you're my best friend, and despite what I tell anybody else, or whatever I do to you, I—I like you, okay? Now I'm exhausted, and I wanna sleep more. Leave me alone, please?"

"Alright, you can go back to bed. Are you okay with the—I can um—well that s, if you need me to do something to help you relax or, uh—make the bad dreams, I know how you feel when it gets dark and. If you want I can put some of the lights up or something."

"Just turn the TV on and press the mute button on my remote control. That's what I usually do when I—never mind. Don't wanna make you deal with my problems right now. You got enough to worry about." I pressed the on button, and Greg watched the screen for almost an hour, rolled up on his side, leaning against me, eyes squeezed shut.

"You're not locked out on your pain meds yet. Do you want me to give you—House?" I whispered, but he was already asleep. "It's okay, I promise. I am so sorry for messing up, but I'm not going to make the same mistake again. Love you so much,' I told him, starting to cry again. I couldn't help myself, between what I'd been through in the past few days with him, and Amber, I don't think I had ever been this upset since his infarction. Almost losing him in the bus accident and then his heart stopping, it damn near killed me, but when we found out what—I don't know why I was such a jerk to him, guess I was still in shock.

Then Amber died, and there was nothing I could do, except be there for Greg, and I even went and managed to screw _that_ up. The only good thing about hurting House was his low expectations. He always forgave me when I messed up, always let me come back. "I'm not going to do this to you anymore, alright? I'm here now, and I'm not going away again. I won't hurt you, never ever again. It's just you and me now, and that's how everything is going to stay. I just love you so much. You'll see; I'll make up for what I did. Not gonna hurt you, not gonna yell, or complain, or lecture you, or anything. There we go; it's alright." I don't remember falling asleep, but it must have happened because the next thing I knew the sun was coming in through the window, and House was laying there, awake but quietly watching me, with big, deeply interested eyes.

"You look pretty messed up. More dreams?" he asked, and touched my face again. "It's almost 10:00. I dunno if that's important. I just…thought you might wanna know. I'm not sure what you—what do you—I mean what do I…?" House actually managed to sound concerned, albeit flustered.

"Yeah, I had more dreams, but at least they were nice ones. I mean, I didn't, do you ever…I uh, that is, my." I was so out of it I wasn't even sure what I wanted to tell him let alone how to actually speak. "It's just hard to think that I'm never gonna see her again, and then I was dreaming and we were doing something, don't remember what, and when I woke up…"

"I get that sometimes, not in the same way, because I never actually, you know, but I'm not sure which is worse. I know how stupid it sounds, but when I woke up this morning and you were there—here, I kind of felt, it was the first time in a while that I didn't feel completely like crap—think it might have something to do with—forget it."

"I realized something last night. I owe you an apology. Things were going well, really well, between me and Amber, but I. You need me to come by and listen to you, help make things easier, do what I always do, but I stopped doing those things. It must have seemed like I was abandoning you."

"You were happy. She made you feel a lot better than I ever could. Had no right to expect a—to expect you to just drop everything because I had a bad day at work," he said, quietly, and looking in the other direction.

"That's how it always worked before, isn't it? I got you used to it, and then, you know—just stopped coming by. We haven't spent the night together in months, and that has nothing to do with the sex stuff. I hurt you. It's okay to be mad at me. I messed up."

"Think my screw up is a lot worse. I killed somebody, and not in that, oh damn why I didn't think of that sooner, way. I actually—it's. This is my fault," House told me this in the same way as earlier, telling me that he believed it. He thought that all of the blame should rest on his shoulders.

"No, you didn't!" I said, a little too forcefully, and he recoiled. "I'm sorry for yelling, but you didn't, it isn't. Even if I had been the one who picked you up, my car could have just as easily been the one to get hit. Look, this isn't gonna be easy for me; I probably won't ever get over it, not completely, but I'll survive. But if I lose you too, I won't—I need you to be here for me, just—almost as much as you need me. We can get through this, but only if. The two of us have to stick together, okay? You and I are both going to be fine, I promise."

"You don't know that!" I wrapped my arms around him, as tightly (but lovingly) as I possibly could, hugging him, softly stroking his hair once again, for a good ten, fifteen minutes before I answered him. "See, I was right."

"The only reason I'm not sure is because I don't know whether or not you're gonna let me be here for you, help make you feel better, stronger, happier. I know you, and I know you don't enjoy things the way they are. Now are you—will you—please. I love you, just tell e this isn't going to be the last thing we do together"

"You gonna leave again?" House asked, almost desperately, more than the usual mixture of depression and anguish present in his voice. "Promise me, and I'll promise you, okay? You say we gotta stick together, but I gotta know if I'm gonna keep getting treated like dirt."

"Never again," I promised. "I love you, and I'm gonna be here. We—I'm—you were right. I am messed up, and I'm pretty sure you're the only person who can understand me, know how I really feel about stuff, be here for me, or as lose as you can get to being there for me. So, are we a team again or what?'

"You're an idiot," he spat, laying back down, holding onto my hand, with all the strength he could muster. "And my head hurts again, but—as long as you don't screw up like that again, I guess I'll—I can do whatever you need. Some of it anyway. I like you goo, Jimmy—I might even, love you. Sort of." Then he got quiet, closed his eyes, took his meds, and fell asleep again.

I knew it was going to be a rough couple of days (probably even months) for both of us. House's skull would takes weeks to fully heal, but he would be okay, physically at least. As far as his heart (and mine too for that matter) went, that would take longer, but I was sure that as long as we were together, everything would work out eventually. It's like the song Greg always like so much says. "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes…you get what you need." I know it's sort of clichéd and stupid sounding, but it's also true.


	2. Bad Jokes

I saw a light behind those cold dark eyes that you show to a cold dark world

WHWH Chapter Two: Bad Jokes

I saw a light behind those cold dark eyes that you show to a cold dark world  
Then something came over me  
When I touched your face  
It took me to a place that I've been afraid to go  
Every time we talk I find another piece of the puzzle of me  
That I never really got to know  
Sometimes it is so easy to believe that a broken thing can never be whole," Everclear.

"I got another one," House called from the den, leaning back over the end of the couch so he could see my face, and watch my reaction. This had been our routine for the past weeks; we told each other jokes, because it was the only thing either of us really knew how to do to cheer the other one up, besides sex… The weird thing was that it actually seemed to be helping—sort of. I still felt like crap, but—I kept reminding myself—Amber had been gone for less than a month. _I love her, it's supposed to hurt, probably for a long while._

"Okay," I said, turning around and lowering the front burner on the stove. "You alright with Meatloaf for dinner? If not, I've still got time to turn it into something else, but you have to say something quick."

"Whatever. I don't care about the details as long as I get some." House started to laugh. "Just like _you_. Anyway, there's a priest, a rabbi, and a minster, sitting at the bar on the Titanic, and someone comes in to tell them the news. Rabbi jumps up sand says, 'I must go tend to my people,'" I cut him off.

"You already told me this one—it was about a year ago I think. Punchline is, "I thought he said we hit a Weisberg." I still smiled, a little, turning my attention back to the ground beef."

"Fine, I've got _another_ then. There's these two guys in a bar. One of them is Chinese, and the other one is Jewish."

"Why are all your jokes anti-Semitic?" I asked, not really caring either way, but it was easier than asking why all of his jokes took place in bars. House had to shrug twice because I didn't see the first one. "Okay. Tell your joke."

"So they're at the bar and they're drinking, and getting totally wasted. The more drunk they get, the more they talk, the more things start to get…you know. So finally the Jewish guy gets up and he slugs the other one. The Chinese guy looks at him and shouts, 'what the hell was that?' 'That was for Pearl Harbor.' The Chinese guy tells him, 'Pearl Harbor was the Japanese!' 'Chinese Japanese what's the difference?' the Jewish guy mutters. So they go back to drinking some more, and then after about an hour the Chinese man pops up and knocks the other guy off his bar stool. "That's for the titanic!" he says. "That was an Iceberg!" he screams. "Iceberg, Weisberg, what's the difference?'" Despite the fact that this was basically the same joke told twice in less than five minutes I was almost doubled over laughing for just as long. "You okay in there, Jimmy?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, ignoring the question as best as I could. House was trying, God bless him, but he just didn't know what to do in this situation, and every time I tried to avoid having a real conversation, he'd get so scared that I'd get mad if he pushed me too hard; he thought he had to drop it. So, we never talked about anything other than what we usually discussed, and neither one of us was really going anywhere. "Wait, I got one too. This guy goes to the hospital and he takes his wife into the exam room and says, 'doctor, doctor, my wife thinks she's a chicken!" Doctor asks him, 'how long has this been going on?" Man says, "about two years.' "Two years! Why didn't you bring her in sooner?' the doctor cries. Man says, 'we needed the eggs.'" I placed the meatloaf into the oven, and walked into the den. "It's gonna take about an hour," I explained, sitting down beside him. House lifted his feet long enough for me to get on the couch, then dropped them into my lap. "You didn't laugh. Is your head okay?"

"Stupid joke," he explained, slowly tracing circles around my crotch with his left foot. "A bit better than yesterday, which was a little better than the day before that, which was a little better than the day before that…How are you doing? I mean, you know…" It was so painful to see him trying so hard and failing that I almost gave in and told him that I still had bad dreams every night, never felt hungry, and didn't think I'd ever want to leave the apartment again.

"Not good, but, again, I don't really know, actually. I like spending time with you. I do. It's nice—and I kind of missed this. Would it, u—I think it's complicated. And get your feet off of me. You're only doing that to distract me, and its working. We can make out or something later, if you're still interested, but I need you to listen to me for a minute without being a pain in the neck."

"Sorry, I just—I didn't mean to—I suck at this. Just tell me what I should do. I mean, I owe you, big time. So, I'll do whatever you say." I hated that he was still doing this. I was only just barely mad at the guy anymore—okay, I as a little mad, but I loved him a whole lot more, and I was worried that he would never be the same because of what happened.

"Look, if this is too difficult, there are a lot of people who are good at this. I can talk to them about, anything that makes you uncomfortable, and that way you and I can keep doing what we always do."

"No," House said quietly, looking around the room as if he expected to find someone hiding behind the TV. "When I was in the hospital—after the seizure, I had this—dream…I'm not sure what else to call it, but—I don't want to be this miserable, pathetic, emotionally retarded person anymore, and I know you—that doesn't sound like me, but I'm tired of it hurting all the time. Maybe we can help each other or something." House sat up slowly, and moved so that his head was where his feet had been. "If you wanna switch places or whatever, just—I got another one…or I can do, something." He looked up at me strangely, like the poor guy was desperately searching for the right expression, but had no idea what it was.

"I don't really know what to do in this situation either. The closest I've ever come to losing somebody I loved—other than my grandparents—is when my brother disappeared. This whole thing has turned my world upside down. It's weird, because we—Amber and I weren't even together for that long, but she was different from all the other women I ever dated. She wasn't like anyone I mean, except for you. I never feel comfortable with people. I just give everybody whatever they want 'cuz it makes them happy, and that makes me happy, for a while." I reached down, gently touching his face, wondering how I could explain something that I didn't even understand. "But it wasn't like that with amber. You were partially right. It was a lot like my relationship with you, except…"

"Except she's—she was—nicer than I am." House didn't seem as upset with this as _I _would have been were the situation reversed.

"Not really," I told hi, and it was true. "Honestly there weren't that many differences between the two of them. The only two were their physical bodies and his history. At least as far as I had been able to figure out. I didn't know Amber long enough to know if she had a history like Greg's. You'd have to have had something horrible done to you to turn out like that, whether it was a parent that withheld affection or growing up in a physically, psychologically, emotionally, and sexually abusive father like he did.

"Oh I get it—do you—so, uh, are you gonna keep your stuff there or do you, would you, maybe, wanna move back in here. Promise I won't short sheet your bed or anything until you're feeling better." This statement was so House like and yet so different from him at the same time that I had to laugh a little.

"Actually, we have to go pack and pick up all my things in the next couple of days. Amber's parents don't want to keep paying for her apartment, anymore. So—when the rent comes up next week, they're just…they're getting rid of pretty much everything mainly because they don't have—I dunno what. The whole time her dad was talking to me, all I could think was—all I could think about…"

"You should take some stuff, you know especially since it's just gonna get tossed anyway. Did she have a—what kind of jewelry do girls like? Lockets, right? Maybe she kept a journal or—never mind. This was a stupid idea."

"You're damn right. You want me to steal from my dead girlfriend? Why? So you can feel free to rummage through her medicine cabinet?"

"My team already did that, and I'm not talking about stealing. She would of wanted you to have something so you can—I dunno remember better. Like I said stupid idea. Forget I mentioned it." Greg started to sit up, but stopped suddenly, clutching his head, tightly, teeth clinched, eyes squeezed shut tight.

"I thought you said you were feeling better," I said, stupidly, then grabbed a pillow, and lowered his body so he was lying down, looking up at me. "Maybe it wasn't such a stupid idea. Are you listening to—House, look at me. Have you been taking the pills I gave you? He shook his head, sort of looking away. "I get it, you're worried, or freaked out or whatever. Yes, they're a little bit stronger than the Vicodin, but—"

"No," he whispered, still holding his fragile head between his fists. "It upsets my stomach. Can't eat."

"You want your regular pills back?" I asked, starting to stand to go to the other room. Greg's hand grabbed onto me, hard, forcing me to remain close. I wrapped my arms around him, gently kissing the sides and top of his face and head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's okay. Nobody is—it's going to be okay. Your head will get better. This pain will go away."

"Don't want it to," he said, even more quietly. I held him for over an hour until the head ache seemed to subside. The first thing I did was get the slightly dry meatloaf out of the oven, then I got him his pills, and didn't say a word when he took four Vicodn. Of course, I realized shortly after thinking that it was a lot, he probably hadn't taken anything for about eight hours. No wonder he got a migraine. His eyes met with mine a few minutes later, then he looked down at his pants. "It doesn't hurt right now. If my head stays like this, might not…might stay that way."

"You also won't be able to think, especially if you can't concentrate because you're lying on the floor clutching your skull for several hours at a time. Won't be able to keep working…"

"Who cares," he moaned, laying his hand on the pillow in my lap again. House closed his eyes, breathing deeply. "I'm sorry, you were talking about something else and I wrecked it." I tried to sooth him but it didn't seem to do anything, so I moved on.

"She had this bracelet. It wasn't expensive or anything, but she wore it every day, and a—she liked to draw, which is funny, because she as terrible at it, and there are a couple of sketch books. Might wanna take a couple of pictures of her and me together too."

"They're not nude photos are they?" He asked, lifting his head and smiling a little. "Because she wasn't that hot, and I don't need to look at your naked body any more than I already have to. No that you aren't pretty, but you're getting fat too.

"Yeah, and you like having sex with me because I'm so hideous and ugly." I didn't really want to argue about this, even though it was a fairly safe argument, no chance we'd end up screaming at each other over this…still. "Ready for dinner?" I asked, already standing and preparing to help him stumble to the kitchen.

Officially (Cuddy's orders) House was supposed to use a wheelchair to do anything that required any more physical exertion than using the toilet until his skull healed, but I let him slide when it came to moving around in side the apartment as long as he agreed to use the thing for all other activities, especially when we might run into someone from the hospital. "I've gotta go over to Amber's place tomorrow so I can pack up my tings, and bring them back here—if it's okay with you. Would you be willing to come with, carry some boxes and keep me company?" I asked, after we sat down. Greg looked up from his plate for a moment, eyed me suspiciously and then shrugged. "You'll have to use the chair," I said, prepared for a fight, but grateful when he didn't put one up.

"I can't carry boxes and the cane anyway. I'll be more efficient than you! Maybe I can even—forget it. I was gonna say something mean, but…I got a joke instead." I knew his head was doing much better if he was thinking up jokes and—probably—thinking about riffling through my girlfriend's underwear drawer. I helped myself to more mashed potatoes, nodding with a small smile on my face as if to single that it was alright. "This lady gets a job at a toy factory, making those stupid dolls that act like epileptics when you touch them."

"Tickle me Elmo dolls," I explained, but he didn't seem to car. "If you're going to tell a joke you have to do it right. Otherwise no one's gonna know what you're going for." I took his right hand in my left, and brought his palm to my lips, then smiled. "Go on."

"So the boss tells her what she has to do and the lady goes off to work. A few hours later a big box of dolls shows up, but there's a problem. So the guy goes down to the assembly line to talk to his new employee, and asks what she's doing. "I'm just following your orders, Boss." And then the guy tells her, 'no, no, no, I said to give them each two _test tickles_." I've got to hand it to the guy, he's great when it comes to dirty, jokes, stupid jokes, and other funny, but usually messed up, stuff. Even if he couldn't figure out how to talk to me about the more serious stuff, Greg would hp one way or another."

"I don't think I've heard that joke in at least ten years. Of course, I'm pretty sure that they stopped making those dolls." I barely got through the sentence before breaking out into hysterical laughter. It wasn't all that funny, but I just couldn't stop. House seemed entertained by my behavior for the first two and a half minutes. Shortly after that, his smile faded, and his "ah-ha!" expression took over the guy's face. He was intrigued, like I was one f the case files that land on his desk, but when the hiccups came ten minutes after that, even House seemed to be worried. "Jimmy? Stop it. I'm serous, knock it off! You've got a real problem, you know that?"

"You would know, wouldn't you, Greg?" I snapped, finally managing to gain a small amount of control over myself. I continued to make little giggling sounds here and there, and was confused as all hell. My mind unable to make the rest of me do what I wanted.

"I dunno what happens when I'm asleep or taking a crap, but when I'm around you haven't cried once since, you know, and I might suck at this sort of thing, and I sure as hell don't understand them, but I think you probably should be doing something besides laughing at my jokes and cooking food for me." I stood up then, and started to clear off the table while he watched, not saying a word. Of course I knew he was right, but at the same time, time how could I say that? "That not talking thing, that's you telling me I'm right. I might be messed up and unable to deal with my own problems but you're not like me. You gotta do whatever you gotta do. I'll be here; I'll try and be who you need me to be, 'cuz you're always there for me, but I can't let you turn into the kind of person that I am."

"I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine. Well not, fine, but I will e. I have cried, granted I haven't done it as much as I was expecting to, but I did cry. If you really want to talk, we can do it."

"I don't wanna _make_ you cry. I never cry, and maybe for me—it doesn't really work for me. Maybe. No, Nevermind, that was a stupid idea. Just talk to me Jimmy. Tell me what you're thinking." House pushed himself into a standing position, leaning heavily on the table. He stared towards the doorway, fell, landing on his left side and lay thee for a moment, stunned. I tried to help, but he bared his teeth. "Get out of the way! I'm fine. I just fell; it happens."

"Did you get hurt" I asked, offering him my hand. He took it, but nearly pulled me down trying to get up unassisted. Then we made our way into the other room, sat down on the sofa again, and sort of snuggled/ lay still, occasionally taking time to stare at each other, or tell a joke at which neither of us laughed. About an hour an a half later he took more pills, and looked up at me sadly.

"I never cried when I was a kid and my dad was—an ass. I just tried to hold completely still, with my eyes squeezed shut, counting as quietly as I could. Some kids create these fantasy worlds in their minds. For a while I tried to pretend that I had an invisible twin brother who would stretch out over me, so that he was the one getting beat up or yelled at or—you know. I hate that I can't say it! Damnit! Anyway, I couldn't trick myself into not feeling it, and it always bothered me, always. Then I stared the counting thing, and I just shut off everything except for the part of my brain that could learn and remember stuff. Now I think maybe that's not so great. I act like I'm a robot and that don't care, but I'm not and I do. I hurt, a lot, almost all of the time, and I have no idea how to fix that, but maybe if we work together I can figure out how to help you. And you can help me."

I wanted to stall. There were a lot of thins I could do to get him ff topic—even if it was only momentarily. It would have been easy to pick a fight or tell him that I had if I had to cry then he should too. I could have poked a sharp stick into any one of his many, many sore spots. This would have hurt House. That would have been the easiest thing to do, cause him a little pain and then sped—a day, a week, maybe even a month—time making up for it.; I could have just offered him pills and booze and helped him get into that special numb place where Greg would no longer feel like he needed to fix me or to be fixed himself. I was afraid that if he couldn't help me, and I had to go to someone else, it would make him feel useless, he would hate himself even more than ever and I might not e able to bring him back from that. And yet, in spite of all of these options, and all of my fears and all of my concerns, I couldn't hold it in any longer.

"I was just—and she kept on—and you. You! She, she! She's—look just because I'm—doesn't mean that we're going to…" I blubbered, unable to from a coherent thought, let alone put together an intelligent sounding sentence. As usual, House was right. I had been bottling up my feelings, pushing my pain as deep down inside of me a I could (although whether it was to protect him or myself I didn't know), ignoring all of my own needs and wants. Ever since Amber had died, all I'd allowed myself to do was love and take care of Greg. I was hoping that I'd be able to avoid the pain, ignore it until it went away.

"You were becoming me, and I can't let that happen, Jimmy. I'm just—I'm never gonna be normal—or "happy" but I don't wanna live like _this_ anymore. I need you to be yourself if I'm ever gonna have a chance. You gotta get better so I can get better." He sat up, bravely, and wrapped his arms around me, patting my head, and rubbing my back awkwardly. "What, this is what you do, when you try to make me cry. I mean, uh—that didn't really come out right."

"It's okay," I whispered, wrapping my arms around him, pressing my face into his chest, and starting to make soft sobbing sounds. I knew what he meant. I could feel my cheeks beginning to flush, my chest heaved, but I still couldn't actually do it.

"Maybe if I wasn't so screwed up you'd be able to grieve like a normal person and this wouldn't bother you so much. Of course if I wasn't so screwed up none of this would have happened in the first place." It was hard to tell if Greg was pouting or trying to be sincere. "Would it help if I did it with you? I mean I could probably—you know, get all worked up or something. Just got to stop doing what, it's just. When I was seven, my father went away for a year. I thought he had been deployed, but no one would say anything to me. My mom and I were staying with my grandmother, at her place. I still don't know if it was because she got mad at him. At first I thought we were on vacation and we'd go back soon. So I was the same as I always was. Then, after a couple of weeks, figured out that we weren't gonna--I thought he was really gone, and I did cry then. Alone in my room at night, that's—was scared, worried, my mom would be sad if she knew I was so scared and upset, or worse I thought she might ask what he'd done!"

"Why would that be such a bad thing? She would have helped you right? She would have believed you; protected you."

"She probably would have shot him," House explained, then bit down on his trembling lower lip. "Woulda tried any way. But he was bigger, stronger, and she never liked guns. He would have gotten it away from her, made it look like suicide." I didn't have to ask whether he had come up with this on his own or if it had been told to him by his father. When Greg turned his head to face me again, there were tears sliding down his cheeks. "This damn well better help you," he said in a farm more firm voice than I would have thought possible. I don't know if it was a motor neuron thing, like when you yawn because you see someone else do it too, or because House had opened up and allowed himself to start dealing with some of the most painful experiences in his life, or if I simply became overwhelmed by all of the things I was fighting so hard to keep inside, but suddenly, I was crying even harder than he was. We lay on the couch all night long, clinging to each other , occasionally taking a break to get up and use the bathroom, or so he could take his pills, crying like a couple of infants until we both passed out around midnight.

I slept for nearly twelve hours straight (mainly because I hadn't gotten a good nights sleep since that first day in the hospital) and woke up to see House sitting with his back propped up, y body held close, face buried in his slightly damp t-shirt. He had the TV on with the sound turned down low, and was snacking on Poptarts, when I first opened my eyes. Greg smiled down at me, and went back to whatever was on the television, turning the sound up to normal.

"I feel like I was out for almost a year. What time is it?" As usual he was too engrossed in whatever he was watching to give an answer but his arm—and watch—was thrust in front of my face. "I guess we should eat and get moving—if you're okay to go today. If not, I can just—"

"Today is fine," House said, quickly shifting his eyes from the TV screen to my face and back several times. Then he went back to ignoring me in favor of General Hospital. "And, Jimmy?"

"Yeah?" I asked, helping myself to a blueberry flavored pastry. The show went to commercial and his hand reached down, patting me on the shoulder. I put my arm on top of it, and the two of us looked each other in the eyes for a while.

"We're even now, right?" he asked, his voice sounding far away and quiet. I wondered if the previous night's crying had harmed or helped him. "I know what we did isn't gonna magically fix anything, but you know how big of a deal it was. Especially for me. God I turn into an idiot when you get mad at me and I have to do this shit," he practically whimpered.

"Yes, we're even. I think we were before, but yeah, definitely now. What you did last night was amazing. I—uh—thanks. Thank you, Greg. This is helping me. It might take a while, but I'm gonna be okay, we both will, eventually. I promise."


	3. House's Heart

I awoke in the darkness, gasping for air, and turned to look at the alarm clock beside House's bed

No one else will ever see,

how much faith you have in me.

Only fools would disagree that it's so.

Some people never know.

Like a fool I'm far away,

Every night I hope and pray,

that I'll be coming home to stay and it's so.

Some people never know," Paul McCartney.

I awoke in the darkness, gasping for air, and turned to look at the alarm clock beside House's bed. 3:14 AM. My fifth time waking up since we'd gone to bed at 11:30. House was having a nightmare. I rolled onto my side and listened to his breathless moaning. _Must be really bad_, I thought. I reached out and touched his back. The t-shirt was wet with his perspiration. _Great_, I thought. I pulled my hand away as he squirmed against it, making faint noises in his throat; it sound as if he were trying to say "No." Greg had been having a lot of these the last few days, only he wouldn't admit to it. In our old life that wouldn't have been such a big deal. I'd just wake him up in the middle of a dream and say, "you were having a nightmare," and that would be the end of it; he'd tell me everything then.

But now I was having bad dreams too. So, rather than sleep, I stayed up all night, watching him toss and turn, whimpering with his eyes closed, body curled up on the edge of his side of the mattress. I was supposed to be asleep, relaxing, dealing with my grief in healthy, normal ways. The healthy way to deal with nightmares is to tell someone, talk about them, and then go back to sleep so your mind can deal with the problem, so you can deal with your pain.

He knew all this, and so every time I tried to bring up his tossing and turning and crying in his sleep, he'd look me right in the eye and say, "You're still not sleeping, are you, Jimmy? You're staying up all night, torturing yourself. Get some sleep. Do whatever—I'll help you get there any way I can, if you need to cry again, or if you need a beer or something, but go to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning." Then he'd hug me, roll over, yawn and that would be the end of the discussion, the end of my attempt to help him.

Obviously these dreams were more than the usual sort. Most of the time he had bad nightmares, really horrible stuff about his father, exaggerated situations that somewhat mirrored the things he'd experienced as a child. Once in a while he'd find himself in a hospital room, waking up from the surgery he had after the infarction. Only, instead of taking that little of bit of muscle while he was in a chemically induced coma, the doctors took his left. Each dream is a little different, in some of them it's the whole thing, in others, they only went up to the knee, or halfway up the calf, or thigh. House told me about this dream the night he first had it.

He was still in the ICU, recovering, and it scared the Hell out of him. I think the main reason was because he _was_ in the hospital, and the first couple of times he wasn't exactly sure what was real and what he had imagined. I had been sitting up at his bedside that afternoon. Stacy had to go—somewhere, and I volunteered to stay with him incase he needed anything. Then, all of the sudden, House jerked awake, gasped, and lay still, panting for a good long while. After that, when he'd calmed down, he told me what he'd dream.

"My guess is you'll probably have those for a while. This situation sucks. Cuddy and the idiot surgeon might as well have taken the whole damn thing. It would have been just as big of a betrayal if you ask me—and I'm not helping sorry. It's okay, House. It's still there, see," I'd said, pulling back the blanket so he could look himself.

"Don't tell," he grunted, and he didn't have to add her name to the end of the sentence for me to know that he didn't want _her_ to find out about these dreams. "This sucks. You got that right," he complained, but it was all he'd say to me back then. Over time, he even got used to those. It still freaked him out, especially when he woke up after the dream was over, but now at least he talked to me about that dream. For him to not tell me abut a nightmare, or anything for that matte, I knew it must have been really bad. Finally one night, I decided that I'd had enough. Between his bad dreams and mine, neither of us was getting any sleep at all, I had to stop it; I had to make us both better. House was moaning in his sleep, little, tiny tears streaming down his face.

"Hey," I w whispered, gently pushing his shoulder to the side. "It's okay. It's just a bad dream. You're okay. You're having a bad dream." Greg looked up at me, scared at first, then slightly annoyed, and lastly he seemed extremely concerned, about me.

"Trouble sleeping, Jimmy?" he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes as his vision adjusted to the darkness. "You're not gonna feel better until you get passed the frozen lake dream, and that can't happen if you're awake all night long."

"Yeah, I get it. I'm screwed up, and not dealing with it, but you are hurting. Your nightmares are keeping me awake, and until we deal with them, _I'm_ not going to be able to sleep." I fully expected him to put up a fight, a big fight, but didn't get one.

House just sighed, gripped my hand in his and said, "Promise you won't get mad? It's like the dream about my leg, only it's from after the bus crash. I'm in a room at the hospital, and my head feels like it's gonna explode. I don't know if you were always there or just showed up, but it feels good, seeing you, and it makes my head hurt less in the dream. Only the good feeling doesn't last too long. You're pretty mad, furious at me. I try to apologize but that only makes things worse.

"'You, stupid, pathetic, needy, jackass! What the hell is wrong with you? Goddamn it, House, you knew how I felt about her. You knew how much I loved—" you yell at me, say it was my fault. You say that I murdered her, and…I can't look at you any more. I feel guilty, dirty, and weak. I stare out the window in the dream room, but it's all black and storming. My head is throbbing again so I stat to try and find my pills. 'Looking for these? I don't suppose you think I'm going to let you have them, do you? Vicodin, nuh-uh. You can't have that. You're an addict. Can't keep letting you do this anymore.' You're hold a really, really big bottle of pills, like the size of tree trunk.

"'Jimmy, please, I'm sorry,' I beg, but you're still looking at me like I'm a—a monster. 'I'll do anything you want, just don't go away. I can't handle it if you go. It hurts. It hurts really, really bad, and you always fix me, you always make the pain stop. Please, I need you.'

"'I need you,' you mock, sounding like a five-year-old, a mad five-year-old. 'You always need me. I'm sick and tired of taking care of you.' Then you get really angry. 'Here, go drink yourself to death, save the rest of us the trouble of having to clean up your messes, and do it at home next time.' Then you start heading for the door and no matter how much I scream or yell, or cry, you don't turn around. You won't come back for me no matter what. You stop at the door though, spin to face me, and stare right at my face like I did something really horrible.

"'Please Jimmy—James. I can't do this. I won't drink any more, never again. I'll give up the pills. I'll be nice! But don't. Don't disappear on me.' I'm usually crying at this point in the dream, only the they aren't real tears. It's thick and sticky and blood red. Once I tried to get up and chase after you, but my legs wouldn't work. I just fell, fell flat on my face. Even that didn't help. You just look at me, reach into your pocket and pull out a bottle of scotch.

"'Here,' you scream, throwing it at me so hard that when the glass hits my head it shatters, breaking into a shower of smaller—little airline bottles—of booze and orange pill bottles too. "I hope it hurts! I hope it never stops hurting!' you scram and then the room is empty. I'm sorry. You don't need all of this right now. It's—today is the funeral….shouldn't be making you feel even more crappy than I already did. You won't make it through this if you gotta be coddling me because of a bad dream, a stupid, pathetic, needy dream." House rolled onto his side, facing the wall.

"Well, I ca see why you wouldn't want me to know about a dream like _that_," I explained, trying to think up a way to make a joke, or calm him down, but I couldn't come up with one. "That's not going to happen. None of those things are ever going to happen. I promise."

"Even if that were true, there's no way to prove it until I die—or you do. Either way, it's not gonna make the dreams stop," he groaned, still looking away, curled up like he was trying to go back to sleep.

"Knock it off, Greg. Look at me. Come here," I demanded. "Amber died because her kidneys got trashed when a garbage truck barreled into a city bus. You didn't cause the accident. You didn't force her to take those pills. You didn't kill her. It's not your fault. I don't hate you, or the fact that you need me." House remained in the same position the whole time I was speaking; either too freaked out to look at me, or pissed off that I wouldn't let this go. I pulled him in close to me, kissed his head, played with his hair, all the methods I used to make him feel better when he was having a difficult time dealing with something. "Come here. I love you. You know I mean that. You know it's the truth. What happened to me sucks, but I'll get over it, eventually. I get it. You've been through Hell, and the only thing that matters to you is constancy. If I'm not here every day, if I don't talk to you, old you, show you that I really do care—if I'm not consistent, then none of this means anything to you. I screwed up; let you down, stopped showing up, stopped letting you know how I feel. It must have been like I dumped you. That's—I'm sorry," I whispered, kissing his head over and over. "It will never happen again."

"But you—I…you should be mad. You should hate me, shouldn't ever, ever, ever forgive me." Greg still couldn't seem to look me in the eyes. He let me hold him without a fight, though. "What about _your_ nightmares. You gonna tell me they aren't important? Not a big deal?"

_Of course they are,_ I wanted to yell at him, but held my tongue. _Yes the dreams suck, but that is sort of a major part of dealing with this sort of thing. My girlfriend died, at a young age, of a tragic accident. Of course I'm gonna go through a lot of shit, but I'll get better. You might not_.

"Yes, they do. My nightmares suck, and I should be sleeping, especially tonight, today. I guess this whole funeral thing is sort of freaking me out. If you want, I'll talk about my problems, but you need to talk to me too. We'll take turns, alright?" I asked, hugging him close until he finally rolled over and looked right at me. We stayed up talking all night, snuggled close together, both of us scared and hurting and lost. I told him about the nightmares—and smiled when he told me they were boring and easy to diagnose—and House patted me on the back, and told me it would be okay. It felt nice to just be able to tell somebody to have them listen to me and to know that I wasn't alone.

Still, I knew that the thing which would help me most would be to make him feel better. His fear—his biggest fear anyway—was the idea in his head, that I would leave him one day, and in order to prevent me from going away House tried to act like there weren't as many things wrong with him as there actually were. He thought I would figure out how seriously messed up he is and that it will cause me to think of him as hopeless, and then I _will_ leave. I'm afraid that he will continue to hide things from me, big, important things, and I won't be able to give him everything he needs, and it will kill him. I told Greg everything, and I cried, and let him hold me, and let him pretend to be strong for me. Then, we switched over to his needs.

"Making you feel better, making you happy, healthy—seeing you get better while know how I helped it to happen, that makes me feel good. I get off on those things—well not get off, get off, but—you know. So, come on, talk to me. Tell me what's going on. What aren't you telling me?" I asked around 3:00 AM, and House sighed, pulling on and playing with the neck of his shirt. "Or just tell me something I already know. Just—I need to know what's happening here."

"It was getting bad, before the accident, but you kept on ignoring me. You wouldn't come when I called. You wouldn't keep my secrets. You wouldn't—you just…I'm not a pussy, alright? I'm not—I don't—I. You got me used to being around you, being able to talk to someone who could fix things in the middle of the night, or on a weekend, whatever—then you and CT—you and Amber moved in together and I never got to see you, never. I tried t- say that I needed to talk about stuff, I tried to tell you that I needed to see you, needed to talk to you, have you around. It got to feel like even when things were really, really, really, really bad, I couldn't call you, or ask you for help, or tell you that I couldn't stop thinking about what happened, or that I wasn't sleeping, that I didn't—couldn't eat, or think, or—I just…that's what I was doing on the night—I was drinking so it would stop hurting. I was planning on just going home to crash, but he took my keys."

"You called me because you were freaked out, hurting, and you wanted a ride so we could go to your place and talk," I guessed, fairly certain that I was right; knowing that admitting he needed me was more difficult than the rest of it. He nodded, looking away for an instant. "But I wasn't there, and Amber decided that she knew what was best—like she always does—did. You were mad, and—okay, I'm stopping. I stopped. You tell me."

"If I couldn't be with you then…just wanted to be alone. I thought. I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but I wanted you, and wasn't going to give in. If—so I threw a temper tantrum, and got on the bus, went away, tried to hide, and she wouldn't let me. Then—the whole thing went—then, then…" He stopped, clutching his temples and gritting his teeth. House's headaches were becoming less and less frequent, which was good, and they had started to feel a lot less severe, he aid. This one came on at such a bad time, when he was being forced to talk abut something he dint want to speak of, it just seemed like too big of a coincidence. I thought he was faking it, but of course, didn't say _that_. I couldn't say that.

"Okay, all right," I whispered, massaging he less sensitive parts of his scalp, and temples. I help him for an hour, after which he lifted his head, his eyes like intense blue lasers trained on me. _Please don't make me talk about it anymore_, they seemed to be saying. "Why—can you tell me more about the nightmare you had tonight?" I asked, running my hand along his spine, up and down, reaching over his body and handing House his pills. "The other thing I wanna know is, can you come with me latter today." This time he nodded, but I knew that in an hour or two he might very easily change his mind.

"I already told you how it goes."

"You told me how it usually goes but that each one is different, like the dream about your leg. All I can do for the dreams in total is be here for you, and hold you and not disappear again, but maybe I can do something to help you sleep tonight. Maybe I can make these nightmares like the other ones, infrequent and not so scary because there's someone here to hold and love and protect you, okay?"

"God you're annoying," He moaned, but lay close to me, anyway, and sighed. "It went like I said, almost exactly like I said, but then. Then, it went in a different direction. Or, it was about to. That's happened before, once or twice, but I didn't. You woke me up before it got really bad. After you left—I can't do this. I mean, I shouldn't be doing this right now."

"I'm not going to get better just laying around crying and complaining about how much I miss her. I need to do what I do to feel normal again. You need me to fix you and I need you to need me to fix you, if that makes any sense."

"It doesn't, but, I'll talk to you anyway. You're an idiot," He said, and laughed a little. "And you have bed head."

"Compared to you just about everyone is an idiot. We get it. You're smarter than us. Everyone's sick of hearing you say it though. Tell me something I don't know. Tell me about your dream, please. It's not stressing me out. I'm fine, or I will be anyway." I watched him nod, and curl up in my arms for a long time, without saying anything.

"Fine, but like I told you, it's stupid. I don't need to talk about this. It's just a stupid fucking dream. I don't have any need to tell you about it. I was in the hospital room, and you left, and then after a while, somebody else came in. First they stood in the doorway for a while, but it was all dark and I couldn't see their face. It's not the first time this happened, and I always think this way, I always think that you came back, and it's surprising when I saw who it really was. It was my dad. Then, well you get the picture. I've—it turns into one of the usual dreams I have about him."

"You've been thinking about him a lot lately, haven't you?"

"Not really, no more than usual, but I always used to pick up the phone and say, 'Jimmy I need you; I had that dream again,' and you'd come right over. Now I just—it was nice, knowing that you would come whenever I was freaked out, or sad, or mad, or hurting, but then all of the sudden you stopped doing that. Yeah, it was like—I used to think you were different. That even when you were in love with someone else, even though I wasn't good enough to be your one and only—whatever, that if I was bad enough off, you'd come and fix it. I don't know why I tricked myself into believing that. It was really stupid of me. You are only human; of course you'd turn into a jerk who doesn't give a shit about me either."

"That's not true!" I cried out, and he flinched. As much of as an ass as House could be, he was equally sensitive and insecure. I knew that yelling at Greg only made him more and more frightened than usual, because in his mind, yelling always connected to something a Hell of a lot worse. This is why he panics when I raised my voice and why I would have given up on trying to get him to talk at any other time in our relationship. "That's not true," I repeated, more calmly, and in as gentle of a voice as I could. "I don't hate you; I never have, never will. I am not like everyone else, and most importantly, you do _not_ deserve to be treated with anything except for—well you don't deserve to be treated the way you have."

"Nobody deserves to be treated the way I was," he told me, tiredly, sounding mildly annoyed as if this were something the poor guy had been repeating over and over on a regular basis, for some time now.

"I get all weird and obsessive whenever I'm in a new relationship. You know that. You've seen me do it a million times, but I always felt like you came first, and I'd drop everything if it was needed. I don't know why things were different this time. I have no idea what happened."

"What happened is that I'm an obnoxious, weird, needy, know-it-all, asshole, jerk. I annoy every person I come into contact with to the point of making them hate me, except for Cameron, and—occasionally—you. Do you think she might still sleep with me?"

"Well, she and Chase got engaged a few months ago, but that in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean anything," I said with a small smile. "And you are exactly the same as you always were. That didn't change; it's not what made me hurt you." I tried to switch the conversation back over to something else, but he wouldn't have it.

"You'd know all about failed relationships, and affairs, wouldn't you?" House said, chuckling a little. "See, how annoying am I? No wonder you wouldn't wanna spend time with me." This time he wasn't smiling, or laughing. He barely even looked me in the eyes.

"Actually," I said, with a smile, "Amber was fairly obnoxious too. To be perfectly honest, she was also bossy, and a bit cold, sarcastic, funny, and probably the best lover I ever had."

"If I ever met anybody like that who actually liked and wanted to spend time with me, I'd dump you in a heartbeat too."

"That doesn't make what I did okay," I tried to tell him in a nice way, but I was still really pissed at myself. "Are you coming with me today, or not?" I asked around 2:00 AM. Greg shrugged, looking away. "Maybe I won't go either. Her parents planned the whole thing, even though they never spoke to each other, when I was on the phone with her dad, he said something like_, I know how annoying she could be_, when I tried to avoid a couple of his questions."

"Didn't you just say the same thing?"

"Yeah, but I'm not her father."

"You're old enough."

"Only if I had got her mother pregnant when I was thirteen-years-old."

"That kind of stuff happens all the time, especially with teenagers. I had a couple of eighth graders come into the clinic because they lost their condom—"

"You're distracting me on purpose because you don't want to talk about my—because you don't want to listen to me talk about Amber. And I know, I know, you aren't all that interested, but I can only hold this in so much longer, alright?" I asked, begged, really.

"If I go to the funeral with you, people are gonna realize who I am and ask why I didn't hire her." I couldn't tell if this is what he was most concerned about or just another way to avoid the conversation.

"Lie—if anyone asks, it was a tough decision and you had dozens of overqualified candidates and only thee slots to fill. Tell them that she was among the top four applicants, but it just didn't work out."

"You're really good at this BSing thing—granted, I'm better, but I'm better at just about everything no matter who you compare me to," House almost sounded like he had gotten off track again, but I knew him well enough to know that he'd just agreed to go with me."

"The only lie in there is the part where you don't mention that you thought she was a b itch and your main reason for not hiring her had to do with her personality. The rest is jus sugar-coating the truth."

"Is _that _why people thank you when you tell them they're going to die."

"That's shock."

"It's just as shocking coming from me, even more, since my patients come in with one weird symptom and within a week, they're about to—cancer patients on the other hand, sort of know that there's always a chance they could die."

"Nobody _knows_ that they're dying, no matter how sick they get, everyone thinks there's always something that could make them better. Most people don't fully get it until those last few days, last hour or so, is when it sinks in completely."

"It never completely sinks in. Every time—when I—when my heart stopped, after the—I knew what was happening, but I still didn't think that I was gonna…I remember hearing the nurse call Cuddy into the room, an I thought, _good, she might be a moron, but at least she'll know what to do here_."

"But you were scared?"

"It happened too fast. There wasn't time to be scared."

"What about before that?" Suddenly I had to know everything he had gone through when he thought he was going to die. "Did it hurt? When your heart—I know the other thing hurt, but did it—when you…."

"I think different people experience in different ways. What happened to me probably wasn't anything like what happened to her."

"But were you scared? Did it hurt?"

"I really don't think this is a good idea," House said quietly. I'm sure I was yelling by this point, or if not close to it, and to him that signified that something really bad would soon follow. Whenever I found myself yelling at Greg, I try and take a moment to calm down, before continuing with the conversation, or argument. Only this time I didn't care how much it hurt him, or how scared he got, I needed to know.

"Just answer the damn questions!" I screamed. House's entire facial expression changed almost instantaneously. It was like looking into the eyes of a terrified toddler. _I just yelled at a four-year-old, way to go!_

"Yes," was the only word to make it out of his mind and into a place where I could hear it? As quickly as I had gotten freaked out, then needy, and then pissed off, he shut down just as fast. An hour later we had both calmed the other one, and apologized multiple times. "Yes, but I get scared a lot, and over stupid stuff too. Pain wise, she had been on bypass for a long time. Probably felt numb."

"But there's no way to know that for sure you haven't been there."

"I'll do it for you, prove it, if it'll help."

"Stop that!" I ordered, careful not to raise my voice. "This was not your fault. You don't have to keep trying to make it up to me, just—just don't stick my hand in warm water for a while, and listen when I need to talk. What I meant was, it could have been just as bad, just as painful."

"Is that really how you want to remember her?" Once again House's uncanny ability to not only hear what I had told him, but to take the information in, process it, and respond in a nice way. "You wanna see her cold, dead face every time her name comes up?" Well, sort of nice—for him. "Because if I really get into it, and tell you what it felt like, that's all you'll ever be able to think about. And then you won't be okay to take care of me."

"But if you lie to me than it's completely meaningless. I wanna know exactly what happened. I need to know. I have to be absolutely sure I did everything that I could for her. I need to be sure I didn't mess up."

"It doesn't matter. People die. It has to happen. That's what life is. Every time something is given life eventually it has to die-. Sometimes it's quick and painless, sometimes you bleed out from every orifice but it always happens. Yes, this time it sucks. Amber was young, but it just—that kind of stuff happens. IT wouldn't have been as painful as with my leg; she just—the bypass took care of that and she just wasn't conscious long enough for it to hurt really bad. As far as being scared, it helps, having somebody there; somebody who cares. It's like…I dunno, but when you or Stacy were with me, holding my hand, holding me, promising it would get better, I wasn't as worried. When I got shot it was too fast to be scared. She probably felt the same way."

"Are you lying to me?" I asked, on the verge of tears. Greg hugged me, but didn't let go right away. It seemed like he was trying to hold me, only he didn't quite know what to do in this situation.

"Would you really want to know if I was?" I felt bad, waking him up, making him talk about his God-awful nightmare, and then completely losing it, making everything about _my_ problem, my pain, my sleeping trouble, my fear.

I thought his question over very carefully before coming to a conclusion of any kind. I shook my head, _no, I don't wanna know,_ _I thought I did, but House is right. I don't ever want to think of those things. That wasn't Amber._ "Think we should try and get some more sleep? It's gonna be a long day, and I'm exhausted."

"If you want, I can tell people you aren't able to talk right now, 'cuz of the seizure and massive head injury and all. Then you don't have to explain anything to anybody," I suggested as we lay down, switching the light off.

"I don't care. Was just—trying to—dunno what. Can talk about it later? Love—" Then he was silent, and I didn't have to look over to know that he had fallen asleep. I kissed House on the top of his head, closed my eyes, and smiled.

"I love you too," I whispered as I drifted off into the night, fingers crossed at my side. _Please no more nightmares, not tonight. I just don't think we can handle them. _ But even though I was scared, I had started to see a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. I _did_ love Greg. I always had. Maybe we didn't have everything worked out, maybe we never would, but nobody's perfect, and with Amber gone, it only made sense for us to stay together forever…or until the next pretty girl willing to sleep with one of us came along.


	4. In The Wake

"So there's this guy in a doctor's office." House had to lean over the side of his chair to whisper in my ear. "And the doctor comes in with his chart. Guy has a very sad look on his face. He says to the paitent, 'I've got bad news and I've got worse news.' Guy says, 'okay,' and nods like he understands."

"House, this is not exactly the best time," I explained, shifting uncomfortably on the hard wooden pew, and looking all around to make sure that none of Amber's friends or family members heard what he had just said. He nodded, like _he _understood, and went back to bouncing his leg up and down nervously. "Do you need to use the bathroom or something," I asked, still whispering. I didn't blame him for not knowing how to behave at a funeral; he didn't know how to behave anywhere. So, I patted him on the arm, acting like I didn't mind his behaving like a giant jackass.

"No, just bored. I got a Gameboy in my pocket; can I take it out? I'll be quiet and discrete." I briefly considered telling him I didn't think he could pull off discrete if his life depended on it, but didn't want to cause trouble.

"Do you have any idea where you are," I asked, furiously. Any sort of emotional stuff was tough for House, and I realized this but I was still pissed that he'd tried to tell a joke during my girlfriend's funeral and wanted to play a video game." He looked hurt, but only for half a second.

"See that guy over there," he whispered and pointed—hand hidden in his lap—to a teenage boy with long hair, one of Amber's younger cousins. "He's listening to his iPod. He's got it running up the back of his shirt, and hidden under his hair, but he dropped something a little while ago, and I saw the wire when his hair swung out of place."

"The answer is still no. You're not fourteen and more importantly, you're here for me. I can't exactly lean on you, if you're playing Super Mario Brothers," I said, trying not to sound desperate. He smirked, quietly.

"You can't _lean _on me period," he mocked, but then quieted down, and took the Gameboy out regardless. Still, he managed to hide the thing pretty well during the rest of the service, occasionally lifting his head, and looking at me to see if I was holding up alright. At one point, he paused the game, held his hand out and let me squeeze it so I wouldn't break down and sob, hysterically. Outside by the grave, I stood with House at my side, my hand balled into a fist, nails digging into my palm, still trying not to cry. "I'm sorry," Greg said, even more quietly. "Shouldn't have to baby sit me right now."

"I _need _you here, House. I think I'd probably have a severe panic attack and throw myself into the grave if I had to do this without you." He smiled, weakly, and managed to keep his mouth shut—save for a couple, almost polite, _are you okay_s, as they put the casket into the ground. I almost went home with him then. Almost. In the car, while I was trying to decide whether or not I could handle the memorial service at her parent's house, he stared out the window

"I think you should go. Otherwise, you might not…I know you wanna be there and I won't cause any trouble," he promised. "I'll just sit in the corner and keep my mouth shut." I let out a small chuckle.

"Like that's possible," I mocked. The car ride wasn't too nerve wracking, mainly because I had him to keep me company. "You can tell me the rest of that joke now…the one about the guy in the doctor's office."

"The doctor says to him, 'The bad news is, you've got cancer." The guy takes a minute, normal reaction, and then he says, 'okay.' Then the doctor adds, "the worse news is, you've got Alzheimer's.' The man sits there for a minute, taking everything in again. Then he says, 'thank God I don't have cancer." I did laugh a little, but only because it was one of the worst jokes I had ever heard.

I had never met Amber's parents before that day—aside from one phone call, after her death—and yet I had been able to imagine exactly what their home would be like. It was a typical suburban place, lots of dull colored carpets, wallpapers, furniture. Even the food was dull. The place was packed with dozens of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, a few friends of hers, a lot of family friends, and House and me. We stood in the corner for a while, with plates of food, while he tried to cheer me up as best he could and I tried my best to not throw my beer can through anything valuable. Almost an hour went by before anyone tired to engage us in conversation. I think the wheelchair was the main reason for that. People are afraid to approach guys (or girls) in wheelchairs. Unfortunately, that was around the time when Amber's father came up and wanted to talk to me—and Greg—sort of.

"So you're Dr. House," he said, and I noticed a slight slurring of his words. _Please don't make fun of the guy, please don't make fun of the guy, please don't make fun of the guy, _I prayed over and over. I even felt my lips forming the silent words and clenched my jaw to keep from speaking them aloud. House nodded, and looked like he was about to say something else. "She talked about you sometimes." Another nod. "Why didn't you hire her," he asked, giving him a soft shove. Greg looked up at me helplessly. "Aw, I'm just pulling your le—I'm just kidding. I know how she could be. Don't get me wrong, she's my daughter and I love her, but God...I still wonder how she turned out like that. Me and her mom hardly ever fight, we didn't yell at her, we didn't spoil her, but we never denied her anything either. Sometimes the apple doesn't just fall from the tree, it bounces on the ground and gets all bruised up and dirty." I was biting the inside of my cheek so hard that I could taste copper, and when I looked down House's hands were clenched around the side of the chair, with ivory white knuckles. "I can't believe I just said that. I'm sorry. I always loved her, but she didn't make it easy."

"Yeah, well, sometimes stuff like that happens," House said, pushing himself towards the table where all the food was laid out. What happened next happened so quickly that I had no idea what was going on, until after it was over. The chair lurched forward with a crunching sound, which was followed by a howl from 'Dad.' "Oh gee, did I do that," he said, sheepishly and even managed to blush a tiny bit. He had run over the man's foot with his chair. We all knew it had been intentional but, of course, there was no way to prove it.

"What the Hell is the matter with you," Jeff shrieked, bending down and rubbing his injured foot. "You could have really hurt me!" Greg shrugged, trying to look innocent and helpless. "What did you do that for?"

"I am _so_ sorry," he said, with a straight face. The two men stared at each other hatefully. "I guess I'm still getting used to this thing. I don't usually hafta be in a wheelchair, but I uh—well it's not…anyway, sorry. Sorry," he repeated, still trying to remain calm and polite.

"You did that on purpose," he spat. You have a problem with something I said," he asked, standing over us, menacing and drunk looking. House shook his head, and tried to remain polite. "You Son of a Whore," he shouted. Suddenly everyone in the room was staring at us. Greg just ignored him, and pushed his chair down the hall and went into what appeared to be a bathroom. Jeff looked at me like he was expecting an apology but I was so angry at him and so happy at what House had done that I just ran after him, and knocked on the door.

"You're okay; the rest of the lynch mob isn't following. Just me, and I left my torch at home," I explained. I heard the deadbolt snapping, and then the door slid open. I climbed into the tiny half bathroom with him, then closed and relocked the door.

"I'm sorry I did that, I just couldn't take it any more," he explained, looking up at me terrified. He likes to think that he can read people and he can, most of the time, but it's not his best skill. He doesn't always get it right, like right then. I wasn't mad at him. In fact, I couldn't remember a time when I appreciated his screaming at someone so much. "I shouldn't of done that."

"Are you kidding, I was this close to slugging the bastard myself," I explained, grateful that House had sacrificed himself for me. It was moments like this that made me wonder how anyone could ever hate him. "He deserved to get screamed at. Actually, I was sort of hoping you'd do that too. Especially when you consider that awful metaphor he tortured half to death. Even I knew how to add on to that." He nodded, quietly, reached into his pocket and pulled out the pills offering me the bottle but not taking any himself. "Thanks, Greg, but I don't think it'll help me." He nodded, dropping them back into his pocket. "Think we should go?"

"Are you sure? You don't hafta leave because of me. I can sit in the car while you finish doing whatever you need to do," he offered, managing to sound sweet, and caring. I smiled and shook my head. "You sure?"

"I just wanna go home and—if you don't mind—talk a little, tell some more jokes." House was rubbing his chin. "You didn't ruin anything, you didn't do anything wrong. If you hadn't done what you did, I probably would have made everything a whole lot worse, I probably would have blabbed about some of the family secrets she shared with me." This got his attention and interest. He smiled, and nodded, and we exited the bathroom, racing out as quickly as humanly possible.

In the car, on the way home, he was quiet, but that was mostly because I was talking the whole time. He didn't take out the Gameboy, or pop any pills. Part of me was worried that he might be punishing himself for something that he didn't need to be punished for. The thing about House was that he always tortures himself. When he does something bad, he knows it's bad and he feels guilty, and horrible, and he hates himself for it, for weeks. He doesn't need Cuddy or Cameron or anyone else to yell at him about it. Everyone thinks he's a monster without a conscience, who doesn't know anything about emotions, but he does, which is why I'd stopped screaming at him over stuff I couldn't change.

"You did a good thing," I tried to tell him, but Greg wasn't anywhere near ready to believe me. "You stood up for her. Of course, based on the stuff he was saying, it sort of sounded like he could be a stand in for _your _dad and the stuff he said was basically the sort of garbage that _he _probably says about you. So, you were technically standing up for yourself, and smacking your father instead of hers," I added and was rewarded with a tiny nod.

"Did he _hurt _her," Greg asked, by which he could have meant any number of things, but I'm pretty sure he was trying to be as broad and general as possible. He was asking about child abuse, but no specific aspect.

"I guess it depends on your definition of the word. He didn't hit her, except once when she ran out in front of a car in the parking lot," I explained. He smirked again. "She was three. He never molested her either but there was a lot of that whole—they talked down to her, ignored her, were cold and distant with her. She spent more time with nannies and babysitters than them but, I know that it's not nearly as bad as the stuff you went through."

"I'm not so sure about that," he said, quietly and while it wasn't a lie he didn't mean it as sincerely as he could have. "Okay, mine was worse but it's not that different. Being treated like you're not worth Mommy and Daddy's time is worse than spankings—the real ones, not the—not what he called spankings. Maybe, sort of, I dunno. I'm not an expert on this stuff. And don't go getting any ideas in your head. I wasn't being noble. I don't like her. I was just covering your ass."

"By running over her dad's foot?" Even from House, that was an odd and confusing statement. I didn't pretend to understand half the stuff that came out of his mouth, but he usually managed to explain things. This time he hadn't bothered to try. He'd just said that thing about protecting me, and then gone all quiet and sulky again. "I don't understand." I saw his smile from the corner of my eye and knew exactly what was about to happen. He was getting ready to rant, or give me an extremely long explanation.

"You were getting mad. I saw you biting the inside of your cheek to keep from screaming, and I know that you're not so good at holding stuff in like that, not for more than a minute or two anyway. So, I figured that you would most likely pick Mr. Bitch up and throw him through a window, which might cause some prob—holy shit!" He stopped and clutched his head, breathing in short, ragged gasps.

"Migraine," I asked, quietly. He nodded, and I knew these well enough to know that there wasn't all that much I could do for him. "Eye mask and earplugs in the glove box." He opened it, took them out, put them on, leaning back in his seat, and popping a couple pills. I wanted to race home as fast as I could, to make him comfortable sooner, but I knew better than to risk his life (and mine) to get into our apartment a few minutes earlier. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince myself to drive my normal, overly cautious, speed, so we did shave some time off our commute, at which point I helped Greg inside and got him set up the sofa, in the dark—save for the hall light, which we always left on—with water, and pain meds near by in case he needed them, and then went into the kitchen to grab a snack for myself before I returned to hold him, until the pain passed.

We weren't sire if his headaches would react (or might be triggered by) light and sound, or anything else but I figured that it was better to be safe and cautious instead of feeling guilty when something bad happened that neither one of us had bothered to prepare for. We lay on the couch for an hour and a half this time, which was longer than the last couple of attacks but still nowhere near as bad as the earlier ones. Then, after a little while, I watched as he unclenched and his breathing returned to normal. He peeled the mask off of his eyes, and popped the earplugs out. "Feeling better," I asked, and ran my hand through his hair.

"A little, yeah. It wouldn't be the first time," House told me, the way he always said stuff like that, without decoding, without telling me what he really meant. I tried to smile and nod, like I had had the vaguest idea what he just said. Of course he knew I didn't, and elaborated. "I was going back to what we were talking about right before. I said you might pick up CT—Amber's dad and throw him through the window. Then I said, wouldn't be the first time. You incited a riot."

"You made me," I insisted but he hadn't, not really. All he had done was play a song on the jukebox. He'd wanted a reaction but had no reason to expect me to do anything that irrational. I flashed him a tiny smile, and nodded so he could continue.

"I didn't want you remember this for the rest of your life as the time you got arrested for almost killing your girlfriend's dad during the middle of her funeral. Probably never get over that. Now me, on the other hand, I don't feel guilty about anything I do. In fact, I had wanted to do a whole lot more to the guy, but I held back because I didn't want you to get mad at or hate me for screwing up your girlfriend's funereal," he admitted, squirming a little. "Plus if _you _had been the one to get mad at him, they'd probably have beaten the crap out of you. Me on the other hand—nobody's gonna hit a guy in a wheelchair, no matter how obnoxious he is."

"In that case you should take full advantage of the situation, go out with a mini camera attached to your shoe, and roll right up to women in short skirts, grab Cuddy and Cameron's asses, call them names, and—I'm all out of ideas, but I'm sure you can think of some other stuff too." This was my way of thanking him without letting House know just how I felt, while insuring that he wouldn't make fun of me for talking about my emotions.

"I love the way your mind works," he said, starting to smile again. This was his way of saying 'you're welcome.' It was totally messed up, but it was the best we could do. "What about you? I asked you—I mean you said that you were okay with leaving but you still wanted to talk about her. I probably won't say anything right, but I'm an okay listener when I don't hate the person who's talking to me. And you're about as close as I can get to liking somebody."

"Well, thanks for the offer, but I'm not sure if your particular brand of—help is what I'm looking for right now," I started to say, only once I got to the word help, I managed to stop myself. "Hey, don't give me that look. We both know what's going to happen. I'm gonna tell you that she was the only person who ever, and I do mean ever, got me and you'll laugh, and call her a bitch again. Or, I'm gonna say that she was sweet, and kind, and gentle and that she—remember the mattress thing?"

"It was like three weeks ago—plus I had the added bonus of you telling me that your life long dream was to own a waterbed, which you bought, and then hated and couldn't sleep in. And I'm not gonna trash talk your dead girlfriend, especially after I just got us kicked out of her funeral." He smiled, although I'm not sure which of the statements was making him laugh. "Tell me?"

"I got the firm, because you told me to get what she wanted, and as much as I hate to admit it, you know more about relationships than me—which is odd, because I've been married and you haven't, and you haven't been with a woman since Stacy, and yet…"

"On a scale of 1 to 10—one being totally straight, ten being completely gay—I'm probably an eight. Being that big of a fag helps me see into the female mind. You're maybe a four, which is why you were able to get married, and why you've been divorced 3 times, and dumped even more than me." We shared a small, quick chuckle and he reached up and stroked my cheek. "Besides, I may have made fun of her before, but the truth is…I was mostly just jealous, or something. She _was_ kind of a bitch, but she loved you and she could make you happy, which is more than you can say for me. Not that I care, but I—the thing is…I dunno. You seem so sad and I don't know how to help you with that. Especially since you always do that for me," he explained, squirming again.

"Okay, so I did what you said, partially because I thought you were right but I just wanted to make her happy, and it backfired. She actually got mad at me. She said I only did what she wanted to make _her_ happy, because it's easier that way, and because I sometimes feel like as long as I'm making whoever I'm with happy, then everything is great. Sometimes I really don't even care if _I'm _happy."

"I want you to be happy," he said, reaching out and stroking the side of my face, smiling and turning around, straddling my hips. "I like making you _happy_. Actually, I love making you happy."

"I meant it in more than just the sex stuff. Now—stop that. I mean it," I ordered, pushing him away a little. "She said she wanted to—she said she wanted to give me everything I never give myself and that—I dunno. I shouldn't tell you that; probably makes you feel bad or guilty or something. I didn't mean that. I don't care if you are the most sensitive guy in the world or if you turn into someone even worse than yourself, but I still love you and everything is still gonna be okay."

"No it isn't. Don't say stupid shit like that," he muttered, tiredly and then slowly flipped back onto his side. "So she was nice when you guys were alone together?" I shrugged. Nice wasn't exactly the first word that came to mind. "Sort of?" I nodded, and pressed my face into his neck. "She liked you?"

"She was sweet with me, and she kinda—I'm a little shy," I confessed. House made an annoyed _no duh _face. Then, he lifted his head a little to stare me in the eyes. "She was helping me with that. We made a movie with her web cam," I confessed, my cheeks, neck, and ears getting warm and flushing bright pink.

"So much for the coming out of your shell thing," he teased, reaching up for a second and kissing my cheek. "Although…if you still need some help, I might be able to find this video about that exact subject. Well, almost the exact same subject. Technically, it's more like coming into someone's shell…" I couldn't stop laughing for a good twenty minutes; which, of course, caused him to worry about me again. "Does that count as a—does that count as a bad joke?"

"That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. So, um—yeah, I guess so. Sure. Which, I guess that would make it my turn huh?" He nodded but didn't seem all that interested. "You're trying to cheer me up. Wow, that's sort of sad. I mean, for the past twenty years, all you've done is sponge off of me and call me up in the middle of the night, begging me to come over. Usually all we ever do then is watch porn, masturbate together, and then you might let me hold you while you drowned your pain with booze and Vicodin, all the while refusing to talk to me. Now you're opening up, crying in front of me, telling me stuff, and you're trying to help me. This is amazing."

"Yeah, too bad I had to kill your girlfriend for us to get here. If I knew that this was gonna work so well for us, I would have done it sooner, probably would of killed someone you didn't like very much too," he murmured. "Like your first ex." He smiled weakly, and I did the same. "I just realized something. You liked her back when she was still competing for a spot on my team. We were watching the video of the girls trying to distract me with their feminine wiles! You said she was pretty, and asked why I wasn't—bothered by her." I blushed again. "I should have just hired her, saved us both the heartache." I laughed again. "What?"

"I was going to go out with her, whether she worked for you or not. So, when she and I did break up—which may not have happened, but probably, well you know me—it would have just made working together way more complicated. And you have to stop doing this. You cannot blame yourself for what happened. I don't blame you."

"Yeah, well you're a way better person than I am. Plus, you're capable of actual logic. The kind where you understand that you're not the center of the universe. But I'm not and I feel like every bad thing that happens is my fault, and every good thing that happens only happens because I managed to not screw up," he explained. I nodded, and smiled and kissed his hair. I wanted to say something else to him, something good, to make him feel better, but nothing came to mind. "I know," he said, still sounding pathetic. "See, even you can't help me."

"Yes I can, and I will. I will help you and you gonna feel so much better that, twenty years from now, when we think back on these days, we're gonna laugh." He gave me the oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-you're-such-a-fucking-idiot look, and glared for a while, but then he relaxed a little, almost like he agreed with me. "Oh, I got one," I said, smiling huge and watching as his face broke out in an almost invisible grin.


	5. The Phone Call

"I know it doesn't take a lot, to have a little self-control,  
but every time that I forgot, well I landed in another hole.  
But every time you pull me out, I find it harder not to see,  
that we can build a better life, if I can try to find the other me.  
The other me would rather be the glad one.

The other me would rather play the fool.  
I want to be the kind of me that doesn't let you down as a rule," Paul McCartney

Three months went by. We told about a thousand jokes to each other, some good, most terrible, and a couple repeats. I started going to a support group, and while I didn't really feel any different, I told myself that I needed to just—you know, fake it until I made it. I thought I was actually doing a pretty good job, all things considered. House's headaches were fewer and farther between. We were both still having nightmares, although they too had become less frequent. However, this didn't make us better. In fact, House and I were both far from being healthy, or healed.

We even went back to the hospital. Things were a bit awkward at first, everyone handling me with kid gloves. Cameron came right up to and hugged me, and said she would always be there if I needed to talk. House, who was standing next to me at the time, smirked and said, "And by talk, she means—workplace acceptable euphemism for doing the nasty."

My first day back started off alright, but then things suddenly changed. After I had been at work for a couple of hours, I started to feel extremely sad, and hurt for no reason at all. I was in the middle of informing a young woman, who's only complaint had been a small mole, that she wasn't going to make it to Christmas—probably not even Thanksgiving—and I couldn't control it anymore. I dismissed Kristi more quickly than I would have liked too. Then, I got up, and ran out to the balcony. I was about to cry, and I didn't want anyone to see it—which is why I went outside—but I had no idea what was happening to me or why. Luckily, Greg saw me, got up, and walked out onto his balcony, and stood next to me. "Want one," he asked, holding out a pill bottle.

I did. I wanted several Vicodin, actually. I wanted to be like House. I wanted to never feel anything ever again. But I also knew that I couldn't do it. Greg was barely willing—or able—to talk to me, open up, or deal with his problems, and if we were both just as messed up, he'd pull himself up into his shell and never come back out. It was weird, but we had almost the exact same problem, but it resulted in our behaving in completely opposite ways. I didn't want, couldn't stand, the idea of destroying his only chance. So I declined. Sort of.

"I don't think so good—er…they make it too hard for me to concentrate and I have a lot of work right now. Thanks, though. Maybe when we get home. If it's still okay then."

"I'll always share. Unless you cut me off," he added cautiously. I smiled weakly. Greg took two pills, put the bottle away, and then stuffed his left hand into the pocket of his jeans, stiff and uncomfortable. I looked down at the wall between our balconies, and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then closed it. I couldn't help but notice that the team was staring at us. "If you need to throw a beer bottle at or through something, my skull is apparently very thick." That helped me relax enough and I was able to talk to him.

"I don't know what happened in there. I was just talking to a patient, and then…she's—I," I stammered. He nodded, pulled his hand out, and awkwardly patted me on the shoulder. "You know?"

"Used to happen to me all the time, right after Stacy left—oh who am I kidding? It still happens. It's always happened. But when I get overwhelmed, I take a pill…a lot of pills, and sometimes—usually—try to find you. Feel less bad just being close to you. Actually, for a while, when we first met, I thought you had special mind control powers." I showed him a half-hearted grin, so he wouldn't feel like he was failing. "And I'm not helping, am I?"

"You're not making it worse," I reassured. "Cameron likes to think she's so helpful, but I only feel worse talking to her. Or trying to talk to her." House looked desperate, despondent, and a little anxious. So, of course, I felt like I had to comfort him and fix him, on top of everything else. "You're doing the best you can, and I know that just trying is painful, difficult for you. Knowing that you're willing to put yourself through all of this for me helps, which—" He cut me off.

"I suck at this stuff. Don't have to make me feel better about it. I've sucked at it since I was three, and I figured out I was smarter than everyone else around. It was like…" Greg flung his arm away from himself. "I wanna help you, but I don't think I can. Hurts a little each time I do it wrong, but also gets a little easier, and I get a little better. We came out here because you were freaking out. I'll be fine. You'll end up on a shooting spree." _I think you got that backwards, _I thought. "Is there something I could say that would make you feel better?" I shook my head and sighed, House drummed fingers against his leg. "Wanna go home?"

"You'll drive?" I could think off at least a dozen reasons (plus the paitents I was scheduled to see) that I should stay, while the only reason for leaving seemed to be my own selfishness, but I went with him all the same.

"You take care of everyone all the time," he announced, when we got home. "It never really worked great for you, but now—you are stressed and in pain, and—you're gonna give yourself an ulcer or a heart attack if you keep doing this." _Or I'll turn into you. _Once again I kept my thoughts to myself. "Or you might become—you know—me. I know it probably seems like it might be easier to not feel anything, but it isn't. I'm in pain, all day, _every_ day. Hardly room for anything else. You couldn't handle that. I can't handle it! And you—well; you're way more sensitive than I am. You're human. As it is, I'm gonna hafta get a new toilet anyway." I have the most sensitive stomach in the world. When I'm scared, when I'm upset, when I eat certain foods, when I'm conscious, when I'm asleep, I get nauseated; I get sick. Since Amber had died, I'd been in the bathroom a good three extra times a day, sometimes more. Greg was taking advantage of every opportunity to make fun of me because of it. "And if I lose you—especially became of something I did…" _Still blaming yourself, I see. _

"I'm working on it," I swore. "It helps, knowing that you care so much." A few minutes passed. We sat next to each other on the sofa, his head on my shoulder our arms around each other, my head on top of his. "You're doing a really good job, Greg. If I were alone, I'd just be sitting around, crying, feeling sorry for myself, and trying to disappear. And I'd be puking and stuff twice as much. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I am getting better. I'm going to be okay. We are going to be okay." Greg rolled his eyes, but didn't mock me. House never ignored an opportunity to make fun of me. He wasn't going to say anything because he wanted what I'd said to be true. He needed it as much as I did. He was as scared and helpless and hurt and upset as I was. And, like me, he didn't want this life anymore.

"It's gonna hurt, isn't it?" I wasn't sure what he meant. I let him keep talking. "Getting better, it is gonna be really, really hard. And it'll hurt. It'll hurt a lot, right?"

"Yes, Greg. Any sort of—rehabilitation, not exactly the right word, but it's the same basic idea—is painful, and difficult. But we're going to be alright," I promised. "And the results will be…you'll start to feel _something_ really soon."

A couple more weeks went by. House and I did what we could. Some days we worked, other times one or both of us was unable, and so we stayed home, watched, TV, cried, held each other, and talked. We did a lot of talking, either way. He opened up about everything, and he tried to be there for me. He tried to be nice, supportive. He did whatever he could, to assist me in any way possible.

Then, the call came. It was around 9:00, after a long day of work. We were eating Chinese takeout and drinking beer. He was at his fourth, and still going, while I'd stopped just short of two. Ring. He looked over at me, confused, but neither one of us was expecting a call. Ring.

"Maybe it's Cameron," he taunted, reaching for the receiver. We were both smiling. Until he noticed the name on caller ID. Ring. "Crap." I knew that expression. I knew what was happening. Ring.

"You want me to talk to her," I offered, grabbing the phone before he had a chance to shut me out. Ring. His hand shook slightly, which is why I held the phone in one hand, while squeezing and holding onto him softly. "Hi, Blythe, it's James—er, Wilson. Look, Greg's not—he's sort of tired right now. Do you think you could maybe, call back later?"

"Greg's father—John…he's dead." She sobbed. I whispered the news to House. He seemed a lot more upset than I'd expected. I finished with Greg's mom. She told me about the funeral, and asked me to get him there. She also said she wanted him to deliver a eulogy.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, but was planning to do whatever it took to keep Greg from talking. I knew what he'd do if he got up in front of a couple dozen people. He wouldn't be able to control himself. He'd say things, terrible things, and never be able to forgive himself for it.

Plus, now with the man who had abused him gone, I wasn't sure if his life would start getting better, or worse. But, a big change _was _coming. "I'll make sure he comes, but he's really—upset," I covered. That wasn't the first word to come into my mind, but it was the best choice. "Right now, and I wanna do whatever I can to—uh…minimize the amount of pain he's in." _Which I can't do if he makes you cry at your husband's funeral. _ I finished the phone call, as fast as I could. House's mom probably needed to talk to somebody, maybe even me. If it were at any other point in my life, I probably would have given Greg the TV remote, and a beer or two, and gone off with the phone, talked to her, made her feel better, made sure she was total okay before hanging up, and attending to him.

This time, however, I barely had the energy to deal with one House and his anxiety and whatever, let alone two of them. "Look, uh—I need like…are you gonna be okay if I leave—just to the other room. You can relax about _that, _I'm not walking out on you or anything—I need maybe…ten—five? Minutes or myself, okay?" He looked like he'd been punched or screamed at—really, horribly screamed at—or both, and more than anything in the world, I _waned _to sit with, hold, and comfort him, but I still needed a break.

"Just go, Jimmy. I'm fine. No, okay, I'm not. I can admit to that. But you…you're shaking. You're freaking out. You can't help me like this. Here—take one of these, and then go—do whatever you need. You can cry, or whatever it is that you do. When you're done you come back and we can start working on me again." It sort of seemed like he was being selfless, like he was offering me time alone to deal with my grief flair up, but for him—this just didn't seem right.

"You got a gun in this place? Is that why you wanna be left alone? You planning to _hurt_ yourself? Because if the funeral is that terrifying then we won't go," I insisted, sitting back down beside him, and wrapping my arm around his waist again. "You are way too calm right now. You're right, you are not fine. If you were fine, you'd be curled up on the floor, weeping." He wriggled away from me. "Do you understand why I'm worried?" He nodded, and began to make soft, near crying sounds. "I've got you, Buddy. I'm not going anywhere until you're okay."

"I keep the gun at the hospital; have ever since Stacy left the second time. I'm not—I didn't want to die then, and I don't wanna die now but I'm—stupid and impulsive," he explained, squirming more. "Look, I can wait. You need something. May not know what it is, or how to give you that, but I know that much." I sighed, and kissed his hair softly. We rocked back and forth together for hours. I cried. He did not, but he whimpered, getting very close. He was just so damaged and in so much pain that all he could do was sit and stare, and—I assume, it's hard to be sure since he was silent—think. I could only imagine the sorts of thoughts that were racing through Greg's mind. He must have been so scared, but at the same time, he couldn't say anything to me.

I finally got him to sleep around 2:00 Am. Sort of. After two more beers, and what I knew had to be more than four or five Vicodin, he passed out on top of the comforter. House lay quivering, and making more sad sounds in his sleep. And I left him alone like that. I knew that there was nothing I could do—not that it made me feel any better. I sat in the den, talking to myself, trying to understand why I was suddenly so upset. By 9:00, I didn't know anything I hadn't before he'd gone to "sleep" only instead of having a whole night to figure stuff out, it was finally time to call Cuddy and explain why neither House nor I would be coming in for the next few days. I hadn't planed to tell her what was happening, but Lisa kept pushing and pushing.

So, finally, I opened the door, slipped into the bathroom, pulled the receiver to my mouth and screamed, "His dad died, okay? We're going to the funeral! I'm taking him. So—just stay away from us, and make sure the team doesn't bother him. If we get one call, your prized doctor will be quitting his job. So, I want you to think, and decide what's more important—I'm sorry," I said, regaining control almost quickly enough to make up for what I had just done. "I'm just upset and frustrated and I'm not handling things very well." I opened the door, and went back to the other room. She asked if I was alright. "Yeah, yeah. House is—he keeps trying to—I'm not the one you need to worry about…not that he's in any danger or whatever. He's okay too. We're gonna be fine."

I sat next to House on the bed. He'd given up on trying to pack. "I'll take care of it, Buddy. Don't worry, okay? You don't have to focus on anything more complicated than what you want to eat or drink—if you even want anything to eat or drink," I explained. "You just—cope. Do whatever it takes. You do it, or get me to help you do it." He nodded, and lay on his left side, in an almost fetal position. I rubbed his back, folding a couple pairs of his boxers and t-shirts, and an extra pair of pants for him. I made sure he had a full or almost full bottle of Vicodin in one of the pockets of everything he was going to be wearing so he could have easy access and be able to relax—or whatever—when he needed it.

Cuddy was still talking about something, but I had long since stopped paying attention. "Yeah, sure," I said absently. "We'll definitely consider that." I packed, placed our suitcases by the door, and then lay back down beside and wrapped myself around House, pulling his face into my chest. He made more soft noises, and all of the sudden, my shirt was all wet. "Attaboy," I whispered. Crying may have been the most difficult thing he ever did. "It hurts like crazy, I know—well, I don't know, but we're in…similar situations, you know?" He nodded, voicelessly. "I just gotta make sure you aren't going catatonic on me. One word, maybe two and you can be quiet again."

"I'm here," he grumbled. "I didn't survive all that crap as a kid only to let him get me after he's dead and technically can't even hurt me anymore." I nodded, but I knew that he was still balling everything up and holding it inside.

"Would you feel better if you hit me," I asked, playing with his hair. This had always seemed to calm him down, but as of that moment, everything I had ever known or done seemed useless. "Or we could throw that snow globe I got you—the musical one I got on my second honeymoon—through the TV? Might make an interesting sound, or look cool, or—I dunno."

"Or we could get electrocuted, or sliced to ribbons by shards of broken glass…Hell, there's a chance—a minute one—that my stove could blow up for no reason and kill everyone within a ten mile radius." He was obsessing. _It's how he deals with…well, everything._ It wasn't healthy. It wasn't normal. It wasn't what I (or anyone else) would recommend but it worked for him.It was helping.

"You're more likely to be struck by lightning than be in an airplane crash," I added. Greg raised his head, weakly, and looked me directly in the eyes. He smiled briefly. "Oh hey—that reminds me of a joke. This guy is terrified of flying, because he thinks he's gonna get blown up, and killed by some terrorist. So he goes to this math guy—mathematician—who runs some numbers for him, and tells the scared guy what the odds of being on an airplane with a bomb are. "Not good enough." So, he goes back to the drawing board, runs some more numbers, and he finds out that the odds of being on an airplane with TWO bombs is less than—like….0001 percent or something. He says, "Is that good enough?" Scared guy says yeah. "So, the next time you go on an airplane, bring a bomb in your suitcase—it doesn't have to be a working bomb, and you don't have to set it off. Just check it through, and you'll know that there aren't any bombs on the plane—except yours. Then, you won't have to be scared." Guy can fly." House's smile was weaker than ever. "Are you ready to go, or do you wanna do something else first?" He shrugged, rubbing his chin.

"Just tell me we don't hafta get on an airplane, please? Every time I fly something goes horribly wrong. That time in New York, in 93, remember?" I did. House got in an argument with some moron while going through security. The guy attacked him, and even though he fought back, Greg still ended up getting the crap kicked out of him. A combination of two cracked ribs and shortness of breath, earned him a night in a crappy hospital. "Then there was the thing in Baltimore, with Stacy, and lastly the idiot who got sick on the way home, after Cuddy dragged me to Singapore and then didn't let me sing in her…point is, I don't like flying." I didn't blame the guy.

"It's okay," I whispered, hugging him. "We're gonna drive. With your luck, both engines will fall off the damn thing and we'll just drop out of the sky." He squealed slightly. "You don't haft speak—at the funeral. In fact, I'd really like it if you stayed sitting next to me, and kept your mouth shut." He shook his head. "Why? It'll only hurt you more to go up there and say…anything. I can see it in your eyes. Is telling a room full of people you're never gonna see again—half of whom won't believe you, or won't care—really worth _this_? Because if it's not; I can shoot you full of morphine or Dilaudid, or whatever you want, and you can sleep the whole way there, and I'll drive. By the time you wake up, we'll be…there." He sighed. We sat there for a while. "Right now—you know what I'm thinking?"

"I'm gonna go with no—mostly because you're an idiot so I hardly ever have any idea what you're thinking, ever," he snarked. I squeezed him gently. "Don't let go—don't let go until like…I dunno, sometime next year."

"That thing in New York ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to us. I got a lot of look at your x-rays when. I saw all the old, healed fractures, and I knew they must have come from when you were a kid. That's how I knew to ask about your childhood. It's how I got you to talk to me. We spent the night together, and you told me everything. The only reason I've been able to help you is because some moron stomped on your chest."

"Second moron, second stomping. I was having a full on flashback. I would of told the first nurse who brushed up against me. You were in the right place at the worst possible time. That's all."

"I agree. But, if not for—I was getting ready to give up on you. And a freak accident made you more than just some sad, angry jerk, who knew everything there was to know bout internal medicine and nothing about how to act like a person. It helped me see the real you."

"So basically, you're saying that you fell in love with me because I was abused?" I shrugged playfully. "Promise you won't leave when I'm—healthy," he pleaded. He was exhausted, having gotten no sleep the night before. Or rather, the sleep he did get didn't' really count. He was drugged, more than usual. He'd passed out. So, I knew he hadn't gone through more than one REM cycle all night.

"We have time for you to take a nap," I offered. "Do you really need to hear, okay, okay," I said gently. "You're never going to be completely healthy. You will always need me. I could never leave someone who needs me." He looked up again, still sad. I rubbed his shoulders, and looked into his eyes. "I won't leave, okay?" House raised his shoulders in a 'whatever shrug.' "So, how should we do this? Sleep here, or in the car? Or do you wanna just get in the car and start talking?" His shoulders moved a lot less the second time, and his head stayed still. He was saying, 'you tell me what to do and I'll do it.' "I think we should get going. It's gonna be a long drive, and I'm anticipating the need for several—rest stops. I mean, god forbid we miss the world's largest thermometer." Greg laughed

"That's in Kansas. Are you planning to get really, really, really _lost _too?" I did the playful idiot gesture again. "I don't wanna go. My mom knows me; she's not expecting a sober, well behaved, little angel to show up. I'm the screw up. Mommy doesn't expect anything from me. Doesn't get disappointed that way." I sighed yet again. Part of me hated his mother for staying with his father for so long, because it had made Greg believe what he'd just said. The rest just wanted to take care of myself and not have to deal with his millions of problems for a while. "See, that's exactly what I mean. You're falling apart, and I'm making everything worse, because I'm such a pussy."

"No you're not—well, you are a pussy, but none of this has anything…not that much…to do with you. Now, just so you can fully understand the sort of person you really are, I'm gonna list a dozen of your personal traits. Some of them are things everyone who has ever met you knows about. Some are parts of you only I have ever seen, but aren't any less a part of you. You are going to _listen_, and then you're going to your bastard of a father's funeral."

"Technically, I'm the bastard," he explained, and then elaborated. I rubbed his arms a little. _You're still going, _I thought. _It'll give you closure. _"Okay tell me. Keep telling me. Maybe some day it'll sink in. You're not just gonna say the good things right?" I shook my head. I wasn't sure I could think of a dozen great qualities of his personality. "I'm not perfect, and you trying to convince me otherwise, isn't gonna do anything, except make it impossible for me to trust you, make it impossible for me to see myself as anything but you know…the jerk." I whispered in his ear that he was not a jerk, not really, but House only shrugged. "Hurry up."

"You are brave—don't give me that look. You _are _brave. You're also stubborn, and obnoxious, brilliant, funny—no make that hilarious. You have made me laugh so hard that I fell down a flight of stairs. Granted, I was drunk at the time, so I probably wouldn't of handled them so gracefully no matter what, but it was still a good joke. You are also passionate, which is great and it's terrible; it feeds into the obsessive—ness and you…if you add obsessive, how many is that?" He held up seven fingers. "Okay, five more, um—creative, and fast. You're fast in every aspect of life, except physically. You just—move, constantly, and I think that goes back to your childhood. If you stayed in one place or on one thing too long…okay—we don't have to talk about that. You are untrusting, and I don't mean you can't be trusted, although you lie a lot and hide stuff from people, but the point is, you don't believe in trusting human beings. No—we're not talking about that one either, not until I'm done. Sometimes I wonder if you trust yourself, or your ideas. That's ten, right?"

He nodded, and rubbed up against me. I slipped my hand under his armpit and had him lean against me, so we could start heading for the car. I turned on the engine, locked the doors, checked my mirrors, did everything except leave. "You hurt so much, all the time, physically, emotionally, and the two…they fuel each other, make each other worse. You hurt so damn much that it's fully ingrained in your personality. Pain is also a _huge _part of who you are. I saved that one for close to last because I knew it would be the hardest to take. Now, I just have to think of something really, really great and it can't just be your secret sweetness, or the amazing ability you have to make me—and I assume everyone else cum. I have to think about everything—and come up with the bestest, bestest thing about you. And don't tell me it isn't necessary because I can see you hanging off my every word. You want to be happy. You wish you could be a normal, healthy person. You just don't know how, and that makes you hate yourself, and the whole vicious cycle causes you more and more pain. You hate yourself more, and you hurt _so much _that the only way to deal with that pain is to do something that makes you hate yourself even more. I wish—all I want, all I ever wanted was to be the person who stopped that cycle. I love you. You deserve to be a functional human being—and you're not. You're passing. But a D- life? I—you," I stopped, sobbing, and bashed my head against the steering wheel.

"Jimmy, I'm not the only messed up one. You're obsessing! You're so focused on pouring sand on the backyard campfire that is my life; you haven't noticed that your house is a smoldering pile of fucking rubble." I leaned back, exhaling deeply, and letting my hand run back and forth across my lip, even though I tend to stop when I notice I'm doing that. "If you're gonna puke again, don't do it in the car. Yeah, I noticed. You're still a mess. Because I killed your girlfriend. So think all you want about whatever wonderful trait I've got, but unless I cure every disease known to man, it won't make up for me being a murderer." I wanted to scream at him but I didn't.

"House," I interrupted, but he wasn't listening.

"I'm unfixable. So, why don't you sit back, grab a stick, and some marshmallows, and watch me burn," He said, popping a few more pills, leaning is seat back, putting ear-bud headphones in, turning his iPod on, and closing his eyes. The volume on his music player was turned up to the point where I could have been singing along. I leaned over, and touched his hair softly. Greg flinched.

"Just so you know, I hate your metaphors," I growled, quietly. "I get it, we all get it; you are so much smarter than we are that we will never fully comprehend it. Stop showing off," I growled. "No one's impressed." I put the car into drive, and pulled out of the parking lot. "Come on," I begged, but I wasn't talking to House anymore. "Give the poor guy a break, just this once. He's not evil, he's not a murderer, and he sure as Hell doesn't deserve this. I know I should be taking care of my own house—but he is my house. He's the only House I care about, and he'll fall apart a lot sooner than I will. He's been hurting longer. Without a cure, he will _die. _Worse thing that could happen to me is a minor breakdown. I'd get over it. He won't. I'm only gonna say it one more time. You do not get to keep piling it on him."

This time, when I touched him, Greg didn't seem to notice. At first, I thought it was progress. Then, I realized that he was a sleep. "Damn you," I cursed, rising my hand towards the heavens. I cursed God much too loudly and House twitched nervously in his sleep. Even unconscious, he was freaking out because I raised my voice. I thought about turning around, and going home.

He didn't need this. He was suffering. I was making him suffer. I was making all of his problems worse. I also thought about pulling over, gently placing a bag over his head and putting the poor guy out of his misery. I thought of all the things I could do for him. I thought of how bad this was going to be for me. I thought about how yet another funeral was the last thing I needed right now. I thought about what he had said. It was true.

His mother _wanted _him to come but she didn't expect it. Blythe had family and friends all of whom would help take care of her. Greg had no one, except for me. He was going to think I had betrayed him. He was going to hate me for dragging him to this funeral, even if I didn't make him deliver a eulogy. The correct thing to do here was go home, and take care of each other. I knew that there was no reason for me not to turn around but for some reason, I just kept driving.


End file.
